Islam´s
Resistance war with Israel and the Jews"AnIslamic
Anti-Jewishness"By
Yossef Bodansky(1)

Anti-Jewishness
and anti-Judaism, is intensifying throughout the Muslim World.
Anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism constitute a major political
instrument in the hands of both state governments and Islamist
organizations to mobilize the entire region for the destruction of
Israel. Both governments and islamic leaders are using
anti-Jewishness incitement as a most effective instrument of
popular mobilisatin in order to reach to the grassroots and get
results. Therefore, with the spread and expansion of militant
radical Islam, anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism will continue to
intensify in the Muslim World. Anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism
will thus continue to be a most potent instrument of governments
throughout the Muslim World.

Among the
Islamists, presently the most vibrant and rapidly expanding
segment of the Muslim World, the very existence of a Jewish state
called Israel constitutes a contradiction of major Qur'anic
tenets. On the most basic level, the mere existence of a political
entity run by the Jews, particularly on a land claimed by
Islam, is a profound challenge and affront to Islam that is
political and not only religious in essence. Thus, Israel is
unacceptable under any circumstance. Indeed, modern Arab/Muslim
ideology stresses the political aspects of the historical enmity
and worsening conflict between Jews and Muslims sens the emergence
Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel on a piece of
Muslim land. (2)
Israel, as a political affront to the Muslims, they argue, is the
root cause for the flare-up of anti-Jewishness throughout the
Muslim World.

*

As Islam rose in
Arabia at the beginning of the 7th Century and spread
throughout the region that would become the Hub of Islam, the
Arab-led armies encountered well established, developed and
relatively affluent Jewish communities wherever they
reached.

The relations
between Muslims and Jews were codified under Caliph Umar
(634-644). Indeed, Jews were never accorded equal rights. In other
words, the extent of freedom and prosperity accorded to the
Jewish population is an act of charity of the Muslim
ruler.

The islamic law --
Shari'a law -- only stipulated the inferiority of Jews.
Moreover, because of the religious connotations of Islamic
governance, the law gave the Muslim ruler free hand to implement
the law as he wished. Moreover, the essence of the special
taxation -- Jizya -- imposed on the Jews is
expression of complete surrender to the supremacy of Islam -- loss
of all freedoms. Essentially, the Jizya was considered a
ransom Jews paid for permission to maintain hold over property
(never a permanent right, can be abolished at will by ruler) and
practice their religion.(6)

The Muslim World
could not escape the impact of modernization and urbanization
since the mid 19th Century. Exposure to European
traditions led to the emergence of Muslim nationalism. The
political dynamics in the early 20th Century were
characterized by the rise of Arab nationalism and its
confrontation with the penetration of West in alliance with the
emergence of nationalist Zionism at the heart of the Hub of Islam.
Moreover, the growing European influence introduced the Arab World
to the European traditional anti-Jewishness literature and
conceptualizations -- from the blood libel to The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion.(7)

The collapse of
the Turkish Empire in the wake of the First World War and the
establishment of European colonies (Mandate areas) in most of the
Arab World shocked both traditionalist Islam and Arab nationalism.
The reaction to all these trends had strong anti-Jewish sentiments
as unifying factors -- the lowest common denominator -- that was
not lost on aspirant populist politicians. The intensification of
Muslim anti-Jewishness following the rise of Nazi Germany was only
natural for the Arabs expected Nazi Germany to defeat the British
and French, as well as annihilate the Jews. Most effective,
therefore, was the reliance on anti-Semitism by Hajj Amin
al-Hussayni and his followers in order to get support from the
Arab World, and later from Hitler's Germany and the Bosnian
Muslims, for a Jihad to annihilate the Jews of
Palestine.(8)
Yassir Arafat considers Hajj Amin an inspiration and claims
to be a relative of his.

*

The Arab World
considers the establishment of the State of Israel to be a
Naqbah ( Catastrophe)-- a holocaust and calamity of
historical proportions.

This rise of
government sanctioned anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism was the
response to, as well as the rationalization of, the enduring
humiliation of the Naqbah despite the inherent despicable
character of the Jews that should not enable them to defeat the
mighty Arab Armies.

The logic behind
this evolution is simple -- it is not the few Zionists in Israel
that the Arab/Muslim World is confronting in Israel, but the
forward post of a global conspiracy that had already devoured
Western countries. Moreover, in order to continuously enhance its
power and posture, Zionism transforms Judaism into a nationalist
chauvinist movement.

Ultimately, this
logic led to the consideration of International Judaism and
International Zionism as the arch-nemesis of Islam and the driving
force behind, as well as facilitating the continued existence of
Israel. Since the international anti-Jewishness conceptualization
stresses the omnipotence and viciousness of the International
Jewry/Judaism as the source of all evil, the Muslims began
understand the relationship between "International Judaism" and
"International Zionism". They were now portraying "International
Zionism" as a choice instrument of "International Judaism".
Zionism is not significantly different from Judaism. Actually they
are one and the same, for Zionism is the implementing
mechanism/machination of international Judaism that is, in turn,
striving to destroy the world and control its fate," Abd-Allah
al-Thal explained. "Zionism, in my opinion, is the rooted violent
despotic Judaism from the days of Moses to our
time."(10)

Nasser's Cairo was
at the lead of official anti-Jewishness.(11)
During this period, 1950s-1960s, Arab and English translations of
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as well as diversified
analytical literature based on them became prevalent throughout
the entire Muslim World.(12)
Abd-Allah al-Thal argued that the modern Zionism, as depicted in
the anti-Jewishness literature, is a direct continuation and
modernization/up-dating of the classic Judaism: "I enjoin Zionism
as a political movement with the Jewish religion that is based on
two firm foundations, which are the Torah and the
Talmud. I consider The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion to be the third firm foundation of the essence of the
Jewish belief, the one Jews adhere to." Given these foundations,
al-Thal points out, little wonder that Judaism is "the religion
that planted in their [the Jews'] souls the seeds of
crime, enmity, corruption, evil, savagery, lawlessness, zeal,
arrogance, and haughtiness."(13)

The rise of
islamic anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism was far more intense
during the 1950s-1960s. Islamism was a major grassroots
development given the socio-political dynamics in the Arab and
Muslim World. It was a popular reaction to "modernization" and
socialism.

The legacy of the
Naqbah -- particularly in Egypt, then the epicenter of
Islamist edeology -- made the intensification of anti-Jewish
drives all the more palatable. Mohammed Hassanein Heikal stressed
the unique importance of the legacy of the Naqbah to the
Islamists, initially in Egypt and ultimately throughout the entire
Middle East: "The [Egyptian] Muslim Brotherhood, many of
whose members had died in the fighting, argued that the Arabs had
lost not just because of betrayal and incompetent planning but
also because of insufficient devotion to Islam. The merits of this
argument, its effect was considerable. Defeat, humiliation,
bereavement, betrayal and economic hardship swirled together in
the Arab mind, and now the Muslim Brotherhood added a religious
dimension. The psychological chemistry of the taboo was becoming
ever more complex, a blend of faith and fury, pride and shame,
truth and myth, nationalism and mysticism. From now onwards anyone
who treated with the enemy would face the implacable anger of the
masses."(14)

For the Islamist
leaders, the enduring legacy of the Naqbah thus became the
first shot in a fateful struggle between Islam and
JewishWesternized modernity. The quintessence of the mere
existence of the State of Israel was, and still is, a flagrant
humiliation- and the imposition of Jewish roccupation over both
Muslim land and Muslims -- Palestine´s Muslim and christian
population. Taken together this is a major challenge and affront
to Islam at a global-historical level because just as Muhammad's
triumph over, and vanquishing of, the Jewish tribes of Arabia is
considered the historical turning point in the ascent of Islam
into becoming a global power, the opposite is also true: The
defeat of the Muslims -- their inability to prevent the
establishment of a Jewish State on a islamic land -- should be
considered in comparable terms of historical significance. For the
Islamists, therefore, the essence of the Naqbah was, and
still is, that Jews defeated Muslims -- a profound theological
crisis -- and not just a political-military event as ordinary wars
are. Hence, the Islamist leaders perceive the mere existence of
Israel as a signal for Islamic world's total collapse unless
Israel is destroyed and Muslim control over the islamic territory
is restored. No other solution will provide for the theological
blemish/shame on Islam to be reversed resolutely.(15)

Most important in
the formulation of this doctrines are the works of Sayyid Qutb
(1906-1966) and his disciples, mainly in Egypt. They set the tone
for the Islamist vision of relations with Jews to this very day.
The development of Islamism in Egypt has been quite unique because
of the legacy of Egyptian militant islamism, and especially the
coherent doctrines of Qutb.(16)
A turning point in the Islamist attitude toward the Jews and the
Jewish problem as a whole -- as far as intensity of struggle was
the publication in the early 1950s of the pamphlet Ma'arakatuna
Ma'a al-Yahud [Our Struggle with the Jews] by Sayyid
Qutb.(17)
In this essay, Qutb decreed that the struggle between Islam and
the Jews is fateful and uncompromising. "The Jews will not be
satisfied until this Religion [=Islam] has been
destroyed."(18)
Hence, Qutb's essay is of singular importance in the evolution and
formulation of the Islamist political movement and its attitude
toward Jews and Judaism. Despite the trauma of the Six Day War and
the reverberations of Islamic Revolution in Iran, Qutb's Our
Struggle with the Jews, although written in the early 1950s,
is still considered by the Islamist leadership to be the most
authoritative doctrinal work on the relationship between Islam and
Judaism.

The Arab defeat in
the 1967 Six-Day War stunned the entire Muslim World and turned
into a catalyst of revolutionary politics. The Muslims discussed
the defeat in apocalyptic terms, calling it 'The Second
Naqbah.' Many of the highly educated Arab intellectuals
returned to traditionalist Islam in their search for the roots of
the disaster. The Arabs were defeated because "in their apostasy,
they rejected the spiritual and moral values, and adopted firstly
the ignorant nationalism, and then, the infidel Marxist
socialism." The Arab World "was injured by a dangerous ideological
disease called 'revolutionary socialism' that is more lethal than
the most dangerous of plagues," and which origins are in the
Judaism. The defeats resulting from modern ideologies are
contrasted with the victories over the Crusaders. Unlike the
Jihad against Israel, the Jihad against the Crusaders
was so triumphant solely because "the unifying factors of the
Arabs at that time, which delivered them victory, was Islam and
not Arab nationalism." Therefore, for the Arabs to be able to
successfully confront Israel, "there is no escape from spreading
the religious culture among the Arab and Muslim soldiers and the
military men, so that the spiritual values would constitute
impulse to Faith and victory, and for distancing from destructive
dogmas."(19)
Thus, in the late-1960's, Arab intellectuals began advocating that
the socialist regimes in the Muslim World had failed, and that the
emergence of Islamist militant revivalism constituted the altenate
for the future.

Thus, there
emerged a need for the formulation of a coherent Islamist doctrine
both explaining the Second Naqbah and seeking solutions for
the Jewish problem. A turning point in this process was the
conduct of the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic
Research in the al-Azhar Islamic University in Cairo, in
September 1968, in which close to a hundred experts from around
the Muslim the World defined and legislated an Islamic policy of
resistance toward the Jews. The conference reaffirmed and stressed
the Qu'ranic virulent hostility toward the Jews, and
studied the history of continuous Jewish crimes against Islam from
the days of the Prophet to the Six Days War. Deliberating on the
future of Islam, experts noted that the arrival of "the
resurrection i.e. the final salvation" of the Muslim World "is
made conditional upon the battle against the Jews that has to
precede it." The conference urged Arab and Muslim governments to
prepare for the fateful struggle for the destruction of Israel,
and, until that day, provide weapons and other support for
Islamist "volunteers" so that they can continue the Jihad
against Israel in the meantime. The Conference Conclusion leaves
no doubt: "The sacred duty of every Muslim in this Islamic
mobilization is two fold: to thwart the destructive falsehoods
spread by Zionism and to work for the triumph of Islam and the
liberation of Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa [in
Jerusalem]."(20)

*

The early 1980s
were dominated by the realization of Khomeyni's vision of an
Islamic State and the Islamist trend in the form of the Islamic
Republic of Iran and the intensifying Jihad in Afghanistan.
The ramifications of these event reverberated throughout the
Muslim World. By now, the Muslim World was already preoccupied
with the specter of Islamic uprising and defiance against the
established political order based on nation-states. Meanwhile,
there was an already growing hatred to Israel and Jews in the
islamic world of military reversals in the Yom Kippur War (1973)
and Anwar Sadat's embarking on a US-dominated political process
that would bring him to Jerusalem in 1977. Thus, the early 1980s
found the Arab States in a state of crisis vis-a-vis the emerging
trends throughout the Muslim World.

The rise of the
Jihad in Afghanistan constituted a threshold of resolve.
Muslims took on a great modern power -- the USSR. Irrespective of
the Mujahedin's failures and losses, they set a precedent
to be emulated for their intentions were noble. And the Afghan
Jihad was an Islamist challenge to the entire conventional
world order, not just the Soviet occupation. "The Afghan
resistance movement has not confined itself to a minimum programme
of securing the nation's independence and territorial integrity,
but openly advocates the creation of an Islamic society. It is in
the name of Allah, and not of nationalism in the Western
meaning of the term, that Soviet troops are gunned down in the
mountains of Afghanistan."(21)
Similarly, the Arab World considered the Iranian Revolution an
epoch making event because it set a precedent whereupon a Muslim
people was able to overthrow and destroy a Israel-US-supported
government in the name of Islam (rather another political or
nationalist ideology). Thus, in Iran, like in Afghanistan, the
masses took charge of their own history and this reverberated
throughout the entire Arab World. "For the Arab world, the drama
of Iran was a spectacle of men and women in the street making and
remaking their own history. Win or lose, they were there,
demanding to be counted or heard. All the Arab elite's attempts to
say that Iran's troubles were peculiar to that society and to
point out the detailed (and legitimate) differences between their
own countries and Iran were beside the point."(22)

Throughout the
Arab World, leaders took note of the grassroots reaction to these
events and the overall sentiments of the population. Therefore,
the Arab State once again adopted anti-Jewishness as a rallying
instrument of popular mobilization.

Indeed, since the
early 1980s there has been a distinct and marked intensification
of anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism and incitement -- from
articles to caricatures -- in the media throughout the Arab and
islamic World. The distinction between Zionists and Jews blurred
and virtually disappeared in the contemporary Arab media.
Moreover, in their quest to galvanize resistance to Israel,
Islamic and Arab leaders and intellectuals now openly resort to
the anti-Jewishness themes. Thus, Mustafa Tlass, the Syrian
Minister of Defense, authored a book on Damascus blood libel of
1840 entitled, The Matzoth of Zion. Tlass' instigated a
revival of studies of, and popular references to, the blood libel
issue throughout the region. Classic works, including Arab
translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, were
published in new editions. The overall intensification of most
flagrant hatred to Jews in the islamic media.(23)

Of unique
importance in this trend are the books published by leading
intellectuals -- both religious and academic -- propagating
anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism. These works provided
confirmation for the anti-Jewishness resistance. For example, at
the height of the Camp David process, such luminaries as Shaykh
Abd-al-Halim Mahmud, the rector of Al-Azhar University, identified
the Jews as Islam's worst enemies. "As for those who struggle
against the Faithful, they struggle against the elimination of
oppression and enmity. They struggle in the way of Satan.
Allah commands the Muslims to fight the friends of Satan
wherever they may be found. And among Satan's friends--indeed, his
best friends in our age--are the Jews...."(24)
Similarly, a Syrian expert, Dr. Salah Khalidi, stressed the
enduring characteristics of Jews since the early days of Islam.
"Jews are liars, corrupt, jealous, crafty, treacherous, stupid,
despicable, coward, and low-life. They violate agreements and
contracts and cause all evil in the world." Khalidi points out
that the Jews thus constitute a global threat. "The Jews are a
mortal danger threatening the world, a lethal plague that
dismantles and destroys it. They are a hateful Satan. The Jewish
message is hatred and jealousy, lies and deception, vilification,
duplicity and ruinous."(25)

Meanwhile,
Islamism continues to be the most vibrant, growing, dynamic trend
in the Muslim World. Inspiring the Muslim youth -- both the
downtrodden and the highly educated -- militant Islam is thus the
wave of the future. For the Islamists, the growing jewish
Westernization of the Muslim World constitutes a new height of
affront to Islam, and thus a threat to its ascent -- a crisis made
all the worse because the Jews are the perceived winners of the
judaisation of the West.

Already in the
early 1980s, Imam Khomeyni set the tone for the Islamist
theological-ideological attitude toward Israel. He argued that in
its existing political order, the Islamic and Arab World had
failed to destroy Israel -- an Islamic sacred objective -- an
unacceptable state of affair for Khomeyni. "Arab countries have
tried every single nationalistic way in attempts to annihilate
Israel, but they have never succeeded. Such nationalistic attempts
will never succeed. Now the time has come to try Islam as an
alternative and follow the Islamic Republic of Iran," Khomeyni
argued. His advise to Arafat and the Palestinian leaders in the
early 1980s is still valid. "I advise the Palestinian leaders to
stop trying to negotiate and instead fight Israel to death by
relying upon God, Most Great, the Palestinian people and their
arms; as these negotiations cause the struggling nations to lose
faith."(26)

A crucial
component of the islamic doctrine is the blurring of the
distinction between Zionists and the Jews of the world. The
massive anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism -- incitefull material
prevalent throughout the Muslim World serves as a convenient
bridge connecting the anti-Israel Jihad with a world-wide
Jihad against the Jews and their home-governments --.
Consequently, there has been a distinct blurring of the difference
between "Zionists" and "Jews" in the theological literature and of
the various Islamist resistance organizations. While the
Hizbullah was the first and most eloquent source of this
transformation, other organizations, including Sunni Islamist
groups like the HAMAS, quickly adopted these
tenets.(27)
And these were not empty words.

In articulating
the Islamists's resistance against world Jewry, the spiritual
leader of the HizbAllah, Ayatollah Muhammed Hussayn
Fadlallah is the most eloquent. Since the late 1980s, he has
developed the logic of the continuation of the anti-Jewish
Jihad the original confrontation between the Prophet and
his foes, through the struggle against the Israel -- now labeled
"the Jewish state" -- and on to confronting the Jewish global
conspiracy. Fadlallah warns about the magnitude of the Jewish
threat: "The Jews want to be a world superpower. This racist
circle of Jews wants to take vengeance on the whole world. In this
light, the Jews will work on the basis that Jewish interests are
above all world interests. No one should imagine that the Jews act
on behalf of any super or minor power; it is their personality to
make for themselves a future world presence."(28)
The intensity and ferocity of the Islamist Jihad must
accord with the immensity of the anti-Islamic plot.

Anti-Jewishness
and anti-Judaism are integrasted in the Islamist struggle against
Israel. This can be best learned from the ideology of the Islamic
Resistance Movement -- the HAMAS. By its own definition,
the HAMAS is a Palestinian Islamist movement fighting for
the liberation of the entire Palestine, the destruction of Israel
and the establishment of an Palestine State in its stead. However,
starting with its most basic ideological literature, most notably
the HAMAS' Covenant of August 1988, the organization
stresses that its actual struggle is global and as much against
the Jews as against Israel or its Zionist inhabitants. The
HAMAS ideology has adopted some of the basic claims of
international Jewish conspiracy as depicted in The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion. The HAMAS´ slogans and
graffiti portrays the organizations struggle as a direct
continuation of Prophet Muhammad's fight against the Jews in the
7th century A.D. Among these slogans are "O Jews, leave
our land," and "Khaibar, Khaibar, O Jews, Muhammad's Army will
return." HAMAS leaders insist that their blurring of
distinction between Jews and Zionists even when their Jihad
is ostensibly confined to Palestine is the outcome of the
character of the threat they are facing. "They [the Jews]
made their religion their nation and state," argues HAMAS
leader Mahmud Zahar. "They have declared war on Islam, closed
mosques and massacred defenseless worshipers at al-Aqsa and
in Hebron. They are Muslim-killers and under these circumstances
we are obliged by our religion to defend ourselves." The spate of
martyrdom-resistance against civilians throughout the heart of
Israel is the HAMAS concept of defense against an enemy
they define as "Jews or Zionists".(29)

Thus, by the late
1990s, the leading Islamist resistance organizations -- most
notably the Hizbullah and the HAMAS -- have unified
the objectives of their Jihad (resiatance) to include both
Zionism/Israel and the world Jewry. The ideological justification
and elucidation of this move is derived from the classic islamic
anti-Jewishness literature prevailing in the modern Arab and
Muslim World.

*

Radical militant
Islam is on the march, getting ready for what its leaders consider
to be a fateful war for the future of Islam. The accumulating
frustration and rage throughout the Hub of Islam is about to burst
out in a wave of rage and revenge against the the Judaised Western
civilization that is perceived to be the source of all evil.

Presently, the
intensifying anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism incitement plays a
crucial role in political Islam on two distinct levels:

1. THE GLOBAL
JEWISH CONSPIRACY.

The Jewish conspiracy is the most effective and justification of
Islamist leaders about the backwardness of the Muslim World -- the
loss of power and economic failures vis-a-vis Israel. All of these
calamities are because of a Jewish-dominated global conspiracy
aimed to eradicate Islam. Being a divine way of life, Islam is
expected to have an answer to everything. Therefore, the troubles
from which the contemporary Muslim society is suffering from are
due premary to Jews´plots. Addressing these issues, attacks
against Jews now appear in the neo-islamist media throughout the
world.(31).
Muslims attribute their calamities and failures to the
International Zionism. A factor unifying all Islamists is that
there is a huge global conspiracy by the Jews in order to erase or
eradicate Islam from the face of the earth. (32)
Indeed, throughout the Muslim World, both governments' and popular
opposition is expressed in religious terms. (33)
Furthermore, the Islamists single out the Jews as their main
enemies because of the religious and political aspects of the
confrontation between Jews and Muslims. Indeed, Jameelah states,
"the Jews are the most implacable enemies of an Islamic
revival."(34)

2. IN ARAB-ISRAELI
CONNOTATIONS.

Anti-Judaism
serves as a major political arguments to mobilize the entire
region for the destruction of Israel. The noted Egyptian
journalist and confidant of numerous Arab leaders, Mohammed
Hassanein Heikal, stresses that the attitude toward Israel cannot
be described but by an "inchoate a blend of fury and revulsion."
For the vast majority of Arabs, Israel is "taboo"(35)
. The current "peace process" is no different. In principle, the
current state of affairs is no different from the fledgling
Islamist conceptualization in the wake of the Naqbah.
Abd-Allah al-Thal, a former Jordanian General during the War of
Independence, stresses that the Arab-Israeli conflict is an
extension, or aspect, of the profound struggle between Judaism and
Islam. "It is only natural for Jews and Muslims to clash in the
wake of the clarification that Islam aspires for higher values
that contradict what the Jews call for."(36)

Taken together,
governments and leaders of organizations are using anti-Judaism as
a most effective argument of populist resistance in order to reach
out to the grassroots -- the Arab street -- and get quick results.
The use of anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism is not tempting
particularly when these leaders need to ignore and/or reverse
declared policies (imposed by international conditions).
Therefore, with the spread and expansion of militant radical
Islam, anti-Jewishness and anti-Judaism will continue to grow in
the Muslim World, and will continue to be a most potent argument
of governments.

The intensifying
Islamist attacks on Judaism should not come as a surprise. They
constitute the first overt adoption by the senior political
leaders of the Islamist world of principles long studied and
advocated by Islamist scholars, especially those preaching to the
emigre communities in the West. Maulana Abdul Aziz, "an expert on
Jewish affairs" stresses that the history of unrelenting and
irreconcilable enmity between Jews and Muslims should dominate
polity in the Muslim World.

In almost all the
pitfalls in the long course of our historical past Jews have been
active responsible directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly
have always helped other nationalities and in their fight against
Muslims. They have always collaborated with any other power, even
with idol worshipers, to inflict injury on the Muslims and their
cause. ... Whenever Muslims have suffered any defeat at the hands
of their enemies, Jewish conspiracy has been at the back of
it."(37)

"Even today when
Muslims have sunk into the most abysmal depth of degradation and
decay, Islam still remains the most formidable potential rival to
the modern West, boldly challenging all its hedonistic culture
stands for."(38)

While "Peace"
being instrument of statehood that is alien to Islam, the
irreconcilable enmity with the Jews as stipulated in the
Quran is unrefutable. Ayatollah Fadlallah is most
explicit in defining the role of Islamist anti-Jewishness in
countering the "peace process": "The battle which will commence
after reconciliation with Israel will be the battle against the
subjugation of the Arab and Muslim person to Israel, in politics,
culture, economics, and security. In the vocabulary of the
Quran, Islamists have much of what they need to awaken the
consciousness of Muslims, relying on the literal text of the
Quran, because the Quran speaks about the Jews in a
negative way, concerning both their historical conduct and future
schemes. The Islamists must deploy their Quranic and
Islamic legal culture to combat "normalization"."(40)

Indeed, even
Yassir Arafat is making use of this contradiction between sacred
Islamic obligation to enmity toward Jews and the "peace process"
with Israel. On August 6, 1997, an emboldened Arafat called on the
Palestinians to prepare for "the great battle" that is coming
soon. In a speech delivered to a major conference of Fatah
senior officials, mostly senior security, intelligence and
military/police officers, Arafat vowed that the struggle will
continue until the Palestinian flag is hoisted over Jerusalem. The
coming confrontation is a most difficult challenge, Arafat
stressed. "The campaigns behind us were relatively easy compared
to the campaigns facing us. We are all living martyrs, ready at a
moment notice to express our loyalty to the message of the armed
struggle we have started many years ago."

Through the
speech, Arafat repeated several time a crucial slogan -- "a
contract is a contract, and a vow is a vow" -- which the audience
chanted with him. The use of this Islamist saying, usually
associated with the HAMAS, is most important to
understanding Arafat's state of mind. "Particularly in this hour
and under these conditions, we are all obliged to this slogan, and
we should comprehend that the campaigns facing us will be far more
difficult and thus demand both Palestinian and Arab depth," Arafat
concluded his speech.(41)

Should there has
been a doubt about Arafat's position and intentions, Hassan
al-Turabi clarifies them. Discussing Islam as the key to the
future of the world, Turabi touched on the Jewish question. Islam
cannot accept the State of Israel as a Jewish State "because this
country is based on violence, genocide and aggression." Turabi
does not believe the Jews will rule Israel for long because "God
didn't give Israel to the Hebrews for eternity. The Quran
explains it clearly." Throughout history, Jews have been evicted
and exiled from Palestine several times by armies empowered by God
to punish them for their sins. "This lesson is important for the
Muslims too," Turabi suggests. Moreover, Jewish transgression
against Prophet Muhammad led to their eviction from Arabia, a
precedent frequently cited by both Arafat and the Islamists as the
justification for the irreconcilable enmity between Muslims and
Jews.

Turabi has no
doubt about Arafat's position on these issues. Arafat is striving
to reach "reconciliation between the PLO which he leads and the
Islamist movement HAMAS," and Turabi is assisting him in
this regard. The seeming differences between Arafat and the
Islamists are not as big as they seem.

Only the
strategies of Arafat and the Islamists diverge, their ultimate
objective is identical, Turabi insists. As for this ultimate
objective -- Turabi has clearly stated his, and thus Arafat's as
well.(42)

And these are not
empty threats. Recently, in late October 1997, anti-Jewishness
themes identifying the Jews as controlling both the US and Israel
constituted the underlining logic of the Communique of the
Vanguard of Conquest and the Jihad Group -- both under the
command of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, a close protégé of
Hassan al-Turabi. "The Islamic Jihad against Jews´s
world dominance will continue...the Islamic Jihad which
stands against Jewish expansion." (43)

"The Islamic
Ummah rejects Israel's existence in the first place, let
alone its continuing aggression and repeated massacres against
us."(44)

Meanwhile,
Arafat's own PLO/PA is not far behind the Islamists' Jihad
in both repeating the classic antiJewishness themes, and in
anticipating the resumption of struggle against both Israel and
the Jews. PA-controlled media is intensifying its virulent
anti-Jewish and anti-Judaism incitement. Thus, for example, in
late July, Arafat's own organ -- al-Hayah al-Jadidah --
reported and endorsed the research of one Ahmad al-Awadeh on "The
History of the Conflict Between Muslims and Jews". The study
ascertains that the Jews still live by the principles of the
Talmud and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Hence, Awadeh concludes and al-Hayah al-Jadidah endorses,
the conflict between Muslim and Jews is an eternal conflict. For
their part, the Palestinians have to serve as the vanguard of the
entire Muslim World in this eternal battle of both Muslims and all
other nations against the "nation of Jews."(45)
And these sentiments are manifested in call for action by senior
PA leaders. On December 2, 1997, for example, Saadi al-Karnaz, a
member of the PA's Legislative Council, openly called on PA TV for
a struggle against the Jews in order to destroy Israel and
establish a Palestinian state in its stead. "Our struggle is still
necessary, we are still at the beginning of the road. Our war with
Israel and the Jews has not ended and will not end until the
establishment of a Palestinian state on the entire land of
Palestine."(46)

* * *

END
NOTES

1.
This paper is derived from the author's book Islamic
Anti-Jewishness sponsored by The Freeman Center For Strategic
Studies. The opinions expressed in this paper are solely those of
the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the members
of the Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the
U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, or any other branch
of the U.S. Government.

12.
Farooqi, Misbahul Islam. The Jewish Conspiracy and the Muslim
World, Kuala Lumpur, Thinker's Library SDN BHD, 1991 (a
reprint of a Pakistani edition of 1967). This collection of essays
as well as the entire text of The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion is still being reprinted and distributed throughout the
Muslim World.